The online choice
The other day a headline caught my eye- it was about a study of online learning that found it to be more effective than in-class learning. I didn’t get a chance to read it at the time- but it did stand out enough that I mentioned it to my mom- a public school educator in North Carolina. She works in a middle school and had mentioned something about some of their students being on the waiting list for the Virtual Public School Program (something we had actually written about just over a year ago). The VPSP is a great choice for many students in NC, giving them the opportunity to “enroll in online courses, recover missing credits, earn college-level credit or even graduate early.”
As we have noted many times here, school choice isn’t about a public versus private school debate, but about creating a vibrant system of choices and options that work for a diverse student population with a variety of educational needs. My mom works mostly with her schools highly gifted students and sees first-hand every day that one-size does not fit-all in education. (I’m sure that raising two kids also taught her that as well!)
So I’d mentioned this study about online education to her- and she was quite interested, so I set about looking for that article for her.
I found that Matthew Ladner over at the Jay P. Greene Blog had beat me to it, posting about the study yesterday. He references the New York Times story, “Study Finds that Online Learning Beats the Classroom.”
The NY Times story notes that “The analysis for the Department of Education found that, on average, students doing some or all of the course online would rank in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the average classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile.”
Mr. Ladner adds, “Nine national percentile points is a very large difference in my book. To put that in perspective, the highest scoring state in the country (MA) outscores the lowest (MS) by about 13.4% on the 4th grade reading NAEP.”
We look forward to reviewing this study more, and to finding out how other states- like NC- are already utilizing online learning as a choice for students. If you know of states that have introduced online learning or other online educational programs available, please let us know! More choices- including online choices- can only help to improve education for everyone.
